The best thing I like so far about Google Plus is the ability to allow my friends to email me, without them knowing my email address at all. I haven’t added my email address in text to my Google Plus profile and neither I have to tell everyone that this is my email address and you can send me a private message here.

Using Google Plus email feature, you can select which of your friends can send you an email and which friends won’t be able to see the email link on your Google Profile. Additionally, you can also choose whether anyone on the web can send you an email if they land on your Google plus profile page, whose visibility can be chosen as public or “friends only”.

How The Send Email Feature Works in Google Plus

Let’s quickly take an example to understand how the email feature of Google plus works and which friends can send you an email from your Google plus profile.

In the above example, you can see that “Rishabh” has chosen to display email link in his Google Plus profile while Matt has opted out from the option. I am present in Rishab’s circle but I am not present in the Google Plus circle of Matt. Its possible that Matt has chosen the “Circles only” option in his Google Plus profile and has configured it in a way that only the people who are present in his circles can send him an email.

Important: Choosing the “anyone on the web” option will allow any person to send you an email from your Google Plus profile, whether he is your friend, a stranger, a random spammer or anyone else. It doesn’t even matter whether he has a Google Plus profile or not.

Enable Send An Email Option In Google Plus

To activate the “send me email” feature on Google Plus, go to your profile and click “Edit”. Next, click the “Email” box placed right below your profile photo and you can choose the visibility of the email button, as shown below;

There are 5 options to consider:

1. Your Circles: Choosing this option will allow only Google Plus friends to send you an email. By “Friends” I mean the people whom you have added to one or more Circles in your Google Plus account.

2. Extended Circles: If you have created any “Extended circles” or have joined any “Extended circle” recently, choosing this option will allow people to email you who are a part of your extended circles.

3. Anyone on the web: This will allow anyone to send you an email from your Google Plus account. This includes anonympuos users and also the people who don’t have a Google Plus account yet.

4. Only You: Choosing the only you option will lock your send email option and prevent people from sending you email from your Google plus profile. Choose this option is you want to turn off the feature alltogether.

5. Custom: This option lets you choose which of your friends can send you email and which friends won’t be able to see the email option. This is ideal if you want to allow only selected friends to send you private messages. This is how the custom setting works:

When you add people to the custom option, only the selected Google Plus friends will be able to send you email. Other users won’t see the email option on your Google plus profile at all.

Exclude Specific Google Plus Friends To Send You An Email

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to exclude specific people from sending you email. However, here is a quick workaround

1. Create a new circle and drop all the friends and contacts, from whom you don’t want to receive email.

2. Double check whether the friends added to this circle are not present in any other circle of your Google plus profile.

3. Now go to your Google Plus profile and add all circles but exclude this in the custom email option. Once you have excluded this circle, all the friends who are added to this circle wont be able to send you an email from your Google Plus profile.

In future, if you want to prevent someone from sending you direct messages at your email address, all you have to do is add the person to this circle. Done!

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Email Feature In Google Plus

There are a couple of advantage of using send me email option in Google Plus:

1. Since the messages are sent directly to your email address, you don’t have to open your Google Plus account to view them. Urgent and important messages will automatically land in your email inbox.

2. If you want to promote your brand on the web and attract customers to your business, you should choose the “Anyone” option. This will allow potential customers and advertisers to contact you easily, without knowing your real email address.

3. The obvious disadvantage here is unnecessary messages and spam emails. The best way to deal with this is to completely disable the email feature for everyone.

Do you have any questions regarding email visibility option in Google Plus? Please share your ideas in the comments section.